


Half a Soul

by rapunzariccia



Category: Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 22:17:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3427571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rapunzariccia/pseuds/rapunzariccia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>written in 2013 for a good friend whom I used to rp with (three guesses the characters we played) on tumblr. Just a drabble-y self indulgent piece for us that I thought I'd put up here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Half a Soul

**Author's Note:**

> ffviii's child soldiers have so much fic potential i need 2 write more of this or something similar sometime soon... (cries) but, really, i've wondered for a while how the other ff characters would deal with one another outside of a dissidia setting? esp since the median age of VI is so much higher than VIII.

the first time she sees him, she does a double-take. he stands taller than most of the other students by far - she reckons he'd give even seifer a run for his gil in as far as the height department is concerned, but that's not the only factor. he's _older_. she's not the only one to have noticed; he walks through a sea of young faces turning his way like flowers drinking in sunshine, and she wonders what fresh horror warrants seasoned warriors coming to balamb this time.  
  
she shrugs, turns away, and goes about her business.  
  


* * *

  
  
when she meets him, she meets two of him. there's some saying her first foster family used to recite - twins were one soul in two bodies, always to be treated with respect, for only hyne's power could tear a person apart like that. she blinks, wonders why she's remembered that out of all the things she knows of twins, and shakes the proffered hand. it's big and envelops hers easily, and the arm it's attached to is even bigger and made up of only bulging muscle, but his grip is gentle. he has a big friendly face, too, laughter lines beginning to crease around his eyes, and overall he seems well-weathered like a rock might. his other half is dissimilar enough; less built like a stack of boulders, a much more comfortable smile plastered on his face. he tries to raise her hand to press a kiss to the back of it and his brother flushes a brilliant shade of red for her, but she has travelled with irvine kinneas, and she is no stranger to the quick snatch of her limb back and a step backward to maintain her composure.  
"please forgive my brother," the stockier one says, and fifty per cent of his soul just laughs.  
  


* * *

  
  
she's instructed to act as a guide until told otherwise. when she asks what's happening this time, what part of the world is under attack and why, the headmaster simply smiles in that benign way of his and shakes his head. she's curious, but no so much that she would question him, and bows instead. she takes her leave.  
  
she nearly introduces herself as _i_ _nstructor_ trepe even though that's long wrong and the mistake bothers her so much she trips over the rest of her words. it's not the greatest introduction to balamb garden, she's sure, but the two men wait patiently and say nothing of her stumbles. she could have kissed them both for it. she pauses instead, takes a deep breath, apologises and starts again.  
  
she learns their names, learns that they're from some faraway desert that she's never heard of - although geography was never her strongest point - and that they're reluctant to speak any further on that point for a reason they aren't willing to air. they look guarded when they say that, but she simply shrugs as if it is not a big deal, because it isn't. she understands the need for secrecy from others.  
  


* * *

  
  
she learns that even though the bulky one - sabin, she reminds herself, she isn't good with the names of new people - uses his fists to fight, he is nothing at all like zell. where the latter is always energetic, always raring to go (although he has calmed somewhat since the sorceress war, she has to grant him that), this one is more likely to hang back as though cautious. she notices the looks he gives his brother, realises after just a week that he defers to the other's judgement in near everything. from time to time he seems confused - mostly by wordplay, she notes, and covers her mouth with her hand when she does so neither of them see her laughing - but he is by no means a bad person. neither of them are. considering she'd always been distrustful of twins, and especially so after the war, it was a refreshing change.  
  


* * *

  
  
she introduces them to the cafeteria, the infirmary and its doctor, and somewhat reluctantly to the training center once they bump into zell and selphie returning from practice there. sabin's eyes light up and dim again when he realises it's a jungle, not a gym, and edgar laughs freely. selphie asks where they're from, and quistis answers for them.  
"a desert called figaro."  
"never heard of it," the younger girl says, and puts a finger to her lips as she thinks. "what's it near to?"  
the men um and ahh and selphie shrugs it off, but she throws quistis a glance that says _these guys aren't normal_. "lemme know if you need help with anything!" she says with a wave, which quistis takes to mean _if they get too much to handle, i'm here_.  
they move on to the ruined quad.  
  


* * *

  
  
it's three weeks before the gang convenes on the third floor. they all four are summoned by squall, with rinoa dogging his every step, and that makes six. she arrives second to last, with only irvine missing, and she's surprised to see everyone - including the new foreigners - in attendance. it's not often they all get together, because the memories are hard to deal with, and in the end, they're just a group of kids with wildly different personalities in a crapshack world that's still trying to rebuild.  
  
squall doesn't even say hi, but none of them were expecting that. the familiar hardness has come back to all their faces, quistis notes, even selphie with her hair as bouncy as her personality. they're all expecting the worst, or at the very least, some new mission. they've been kept away from SeeD detail for months now, on forced medical leave though they all insist there's nothing wrong with them. what they're faced with isn't what they thought to hear, but they take it in stride. the brothers seem confused by their reaction.  
"so different worlds don't faze you? i'm... pretty sure that's not the right way to deal with this. shouldn't you all be throwing your hands up in the air, saying 'surely not!'?" edgar looks at them, and none of them are smiling. "you guys are young. you should be skeptical."  
"we've done too much for that," squall says, and doesn't let him press the topic. "quistis, they say they came through near an advanced city."  
"esthar?" she asks, and it feels _good_ to be on detail again.  
"that's what i'm thinking. go with them, find out if that's the case. selphie, get on the comms and find out if there's been anyone else. zell, irvine, if she turns anything up, you guys are going to be the first to be there. rin and i will put out messages to galbadia and trabia, keep them informed."  
  


* * *

  
  
they're driven to balamb, and both men are surprised at how quiet the town is, considering the giant mechanical monstrosity that landed nearby. she can't fault them for that, and explains bits of its history as they walk through. she points out zell's house, nods a hello to the queen of cards, and ferries them onto the train with the excuse that next time they'll get to see the sea. it's two hours to timber, and she spends the entire journey explaining history and answering questions. when she realises they're both listening raptly, something warm blooms in her chest, and she thinks that when - if - she leaves garden, she'll take up teaching elsewhere. she veers easily away from the topic of the sorceress, and the war, although she knows she can't avoid it forever. it's something she should deal with in her own time too, but she never seems to have time to see kadowaki these days, or xu when the girl's in a questioning mood.  
  
instead they disembark, and she starts talking about timber instead: how it gained its independence, how its influence is mostly galbadian, how you can tell by the architecture and layout of the place. she steers them onto another train, one that takes them out over the sea on the raised bridge, and by the time they pull into FH, the sun's dipping below the horizon. they step out and watch the waves shimmer pink-gold-deep blue, and when they say that it's a gorgeous view she's inclined to agree.  
  
they stop overnight in an inn and quistis gets a whole room to herself because if nothing else, the brothers come from a world that taught them to be chivalrous to women. she opens the window and rolls herself tight in the blankets and tries to forget that the double bed is too large for her, and within the hour she's asleep and dreaming of a witch without a face. when they reconvene in the morning she tells them she woke once or twice during the night, but chalks it up to the cold sea air rather than nightmares. sabin shoots her a look that says he doesn't quite believe her, but he asks no questions, and she leads onward.  
  


* * *

  
  
it takes the better part of a day to walk the lines from FH to esthar, and although she's done it before, quistis finds herself wishing that the lines were fully fixed. they talk less as they walk: it's a linear path and there are no hills to climb, no monsters to fight, but it goes on for what seems like forever, and their breath is better saved for the journey than banter. quistis leads at first, and then they walk three abreast, and once or twice they stop to catch their breath and fill their bellies.   
"so what's in esthar, anyway?" edgar asks around a mouthful of dried fish. she chews, thinks hard. there's plenty of things in esthar. knowledge, cars that hover a foot off the ground, buildings made of coloured glass that touch the sky and a president who got the job by tricking a sorceress.  
"dr odine," she replies after swallowing. "he likes to think he knows everything. if you want to go home, he's your best bet."  
  


* * *

  
  
they're welcomed and treated kindly enough, though both brothers recoil at the sight of the short, clownish doctor. she doesn't understand why- the man's not the best company, she'll be the first to admit that, but there's something more than just simple aversion painted strongly on both their faces. odine waves his hand irritably to get his experiments started, and sabin looks back at her. he has very blue eyes, she realises, and her stomach feels like it turns over inside her.  
"aren't you- you're not coming too?"  
for a moment she's tempted to shake her head and adopt a rueful smile, then slip away to walk esthar's crystal streets by herself for the day. instead she asks the doctor if it's okay, and holds back an impatient sigh when he acts as though she's wasted his time. she follows behind as they go to answer questions in a more sterile environment.  
  


* * *

  
  
they're proclaimed medical mysteries, though odine swears he will do all they can do find their ruined world. he makes quistis agree to send word direct to his labs if they find any other strangers and then shoos them away. she decides to pay a call on the president and finds him absent, though the dark-skinned aide she recognises as kiros says he'll make mention of their visit when he returns. they're told to make the palace theirs while they stay, and quistis decides to let them alone to their feelings for a while. she finds books in her room, and kicks her boots off to lie on the bed and take in a history of the lunar base.  
  
she's woken up by a soft knock at her door. she stirs, realises her mouth is dry, and wonders what the noise is- then scrambles off the bed as realisation hits her. the book she had been reading is on the floor, front cover bent right back, and she's running her tongue over her lips to wet them as she opens the door.   
"oh, did i wake you? i'm so sorry."  
it's sabin, and judging by his greeting she probably looks terrible. she lifts a hand to smooth her hair, pushes her glasses back into place, and clears her throat.  
"no, no, i..." she fumbles for a lie, fails, and flushes. "... yes, alright, i was asleep, but i didn't mean to be. is anything the matter?"  
"not really." he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, and can't quite meet her eyes. "edgar went to explore, to... find out how this place works, he said. he likes machines, stuff like that. i think he wanted to be alone."  
 _twins separated,_ quistis thinks. _isn't that some kind of bad omen?_  
"i tend to get lost when i wander, and i didn't want to be stuck in our room with nothing to do. not after... that doctor of yours. i was wondering- oh, but you were asleep, i shouldn't-"  
"if i could show you around?" she finishes. he nods, and she could swear he's blushing. "wait a moment. let me put my shoes on- you can come in, it won't take a minute. if i stay here i'll just fall asleep again, so this is a good idea-"  
  
when they leave, sabin makes an aborted gesture that looks like it might have been a sweep of the arm, perhaps to usher her forward or take her hand in the crook of his elbow, and the entire time they walk together she can't put it entirely out of mind. they speak little and less as they wander; the entire thing is a pretense to think and not be alone while doing so. for her part, she marvels at how strange these foreign people are- strange in their familiarity. she doesn't know the full picture, of course, but they have two arms and two legs and two eyes and both of them speak her mother tongue, somehow. they can fight, and they've both obviously seen terrible things, though she'll never ask just what. she poses the question to herself- what did you deal with, quistis, to make you grow up so soon? and finds that she cannot put her answer into words to even herself.  
  
there's a private gardens that the president is said to sometimes wander, and the guards kindly admit them once they're recognised. quistis takes a seat on a bench, and sabin paces slowly, coming to a stop beside a pool of water.  
"this is a weird place," he says eventually, "but it's not bad."  
she thinks back to a year previous, when gardens were at war with one another and a sorceress from the future tried to erase humanity from the world, starting with her group of elite mercenaries. she thinks of the places still rebuilding, the political tension between galbadia and the rest of the world, the strong monsters that still roam the great plains of esthar after the last lunar cry.  
"it's not bad," she agrees.  
  



End file.
